NINTH SCENE
Same as Eighth Scene. Early light.Guenevereis discovered with a youngNovice.
Guenevere
What hour is it?
First Novice
Madam, struck six.
Guenevere
Still rumour,
And never the one certain thing. Two hours
Since any word came how the battle goes.
Yet all night long
Have our replenished torches flamed to guide
The bearers of the wounded to our gates.
First Novice
Cloister and ante-chapel both are filled;
And still they bring them in, dying and dead.
Never was seen such slaughter in the world.
Guenevere
Still no news of the King!
(A pause.)
EnterSecond Novice.
Second Novice
News, Madam!
Guenevere
Speak.
Second Novice
There came a rider spurring from the West;
His head was badged with blood. He implored speech
Passionately, as heavy with his news,
Of the Sister Lynned. She has quit the task
That keeps her with those wounded ones, and gone
To the gate to meet him. He is named, they say,
Sir Bedivere.
Guenevere
The King’s friend. He will bring
News of the King.
First Novice
Madam, the Sister comes.
EnterLynned.
Lynned
Our Reverend Mother Abbess needs more hands
To bind those many wounds up. Go to her.
[TheNovicesgo out, leavingGuenevereandLynnedfacing each other.
[TheNovicesgo out, leavingGuenevereandLynnedfacing each other.
Guenevere
There’s tidings on your face. The King is dead!
Lynned
The King is dead. The flower of Kings is fallen.
(A pause.)
Lucan is dead, Pelleas and Sagramore,
Lamorak, Meliot, Pellenore, Ozanna;
That famous fellowship of knights is dust.
Guenevere
Who shall let leap his bright sword in the air?
In what cause? There is no cause any more.
What tidings brought Sir Bedivere? Tell all.
Lynned
The rebel power is broken, and he that raised it
Dead. Woe on us that the King died with him!
Upon a field all mounded with the slain,
The bloodiest harvest Time did ever reap,
He and the traitor Mordred met their last
And smote each other, even to the death.
From a seashore that seemed the end of earth
(So tells Sir Bedivere, like a ghost himself)
Men fled into the tumble of the tides
And the waves choked them falling; the salt spray
Stung them: but “Never saw I fire,†said he,
“Of such an indignation fill the King
Seeking for Mordred. At the last he spied him
Among the heaped dead, leaning on his sword,
And cried aloud and smote him; and that traitor,
Even as he gasped his bitter soul out, struck
On our anointed.â€
Guenevere
Arthur, Arthur!
Lynned
Yet
Not there he died, though hurt to death: in his arms
Sir Bedivere upbore him to a mere
Deep in the hills. There the King bade him ride
To Amesbury—ride swift and tell the Queen,
How, ere he died, he had sent words of love,
Of old, long love to Launcelot overseas;
With his life’s blood his secret heart gushed out
In love for Launcelot and his Queen. With that
Sir Bedivere departed; but so loth
That soon he came again, and lo! the King
Was no more there, but in the place was sound
He knew not whether of water or in the air,
A music new to mortals, and the smell
As of flowers floating through the dark, as if
The passing of that spirit sweetened earth.
And he remembered how it was foretold
That three sad Queens should fetch King Arthur home
Across the water of Avalon to his rest.
(A chant is faintly heard in the distance during this last speech.)
(A chant is faintly heard in the distance during this last speech.)
Guenevere
I am the cost. They are fallen, those famous ones
Who made this kingdom glorious, they are fallen
About their King; they have yielded up their strength
And beauty and valour.
(The convent bell begins to toll.)
The grieving bell begins,
As if it were the mouth and voice of Death
Emptying the earth of honour and renown.
I was the cost of all.
Lynned
Lift up your heart!
Out of such pain the immortal part of us
Is tempered. The King passes: even now
He is ferried over that lamenting mere,
And voices from the starred air sing him home.
But for us, tarriers in this wounded world,
Love, only love, that knows no measure, love
That understands all sorrows and all sins,
Love that alone changes the hearts of men,
And gives to the last heart-beat, only love
Suffices. Come we apart and pray awhile
For the noble and great spirits passed from us.
(The chant is heard nearer, and rises louder as the scene closes in darkness. After a pause the gloom melts, gradually revealing a wide distance of moonlit water, over which glides a barge, bearingKing Arthur,and the three Queens sorrowing over him, to the island of Avalon.)
(The chant is heard nearer, and rises louder as the scene closes in darkness. After a pause the gloom melts, gradually revealing a wide distance of moonlit water, over which glides a barge, bearingKing Arthur,and the three Queens sorrowing over him, to the island of Avalon.)